


One Minute

by orphan_account



Series: Terrible and True [15]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:25:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We don't have time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Minute

Sunday, December 26, 1999

Dawn has barely sent its first rays of light streaking across the dark, cloudy sky when Numbers is startled out of sleep by the _Duluth News Tribune_ being thrown onto the coffee table, the loud _slap_ of paper meeting wood sending him jolting upright on the sofa. Purely on a reflex he honed long ago, his hand immediately grasps the gun stashed under his pillow as his body lurches upwards, and he quickly aims it in the general direction of where the sound came before his eyes can even shake sleep from them.

“Christ! Watch where you’re pointin’ that thing, kid!”

“Chet?” Numbers groans, lowering the weapon. “I could have blown your head off, man! Jesus!” Numbers drops the gun between his legs and buries his face in his palms, breathing deeply. “What time is it? What do you want?”

“It’s 6:30, and just read that.” Chet stabs an agitated finger towards the newspaper, already folded over to the local section. Pacing beside the coffee table, he shakes loose a cigarette from his pack and lights up. “We’ve got a problem.”

Numbers grabs the paper, shakes out the wrinkles, and skims over the headlines until he finds what Chet’s referring to. “Man Missing; Foul Play Suspected” reads one of the more sizeable articles. As he begins reading the piece the color drains from his face. They do, indeed, have a problem, and a big fucking one, at that. Evidently Petroske’s daughter had visited on Christmas evening and saw blood in her father’s house. Even though Wrench and Numbers had spent the better part of their Christmas Eve wiping bits of the guy from his walls and cutting away the stained sections of carpet before covering those areas with the dining room rug, they had clearly missed a spot on an entryway frame, and that was more than enough for Janet Petroske to bring the goddamn police into the matter.

“Shit,” Numbers breathes, tossing the newspaper back onto the table.

“Yeah, ‘shit’ is right!” Chet extinguishes his half-smoked cigarette, runs a hand through his white hair, then lights up another. “Cops are swarmin’ all over Petroske’s house, got it taped up and everythin’. Lagler’s gonna see this,” he points to the paper with the hand holding his cigarette, sending wisps of smoke in Numbers’ direction, “and as soon as he does he’s gonna skip town, so we’ve gotta get over to his place right away.” The angry lines that settled into Chet’s forehead dissipate, giving way to something akin to his usual genial expression. “It’ll be just like old times, huh?” He slaps Numbers’ knee, covered by the blanket. “Just you and me. You can tell that Wrench fella all about the action later, but for now it’s in our best interests to get goin’.”

Numbers’ face goes stiffly still, and his body with it. Inwardly, however, his mind is buzzing: Wrench would probably never forgive him and give him an infinite amount of shit, to boot, if Numbers went off to finish the job without him. It’s a worse scenario than Lagler getting away with the last pieces of the puzzle. He can’t do that to him. Doesn’t want to. “No.” He looks up to Chet, watches the old man’s face fall. “No, it’s me and him now. If I’m going he’s coming, too.” He frees himself from underneath the blanket and stands. He averts his eyes from Chet now, drawing himself to his full height and arching his back until he hears it give a quiet, satisfying _pop_.

Chet gapes at him, his mouth open in a trout-like frown with his cigarette balancing on his bottom lip. A beat passes before he takes it out and sets it in the ashtray, pairing it next to the other stick. “What are ya talkin’ about? We’ve gotta go right now, that nitwit’s up at the crack of dawn and—”

Numbers waves him off. “Gimme a minute to get him, he’s still asleep.”

“We don’t have time for a damn minute—”

“Just one fucking minute, alright?” Numbers yells, surprising himself with how shrill his voice goes. He smoothes back his hair, drawing in a deep breath to steady himself. “Me and him will take care of this, a few minutes isn’t gonna make a difference.” He makes a move towards the bedroom but Chet whips him back around, jabbing a reproachful finger in his face.

“If Lagler makes off this is on your head, ya got that?” The look he’s giving Numbers is one of pure betrayal. “I ain’t coverin’ for ya if ya fuck this up. Since we clearly ain’t a _team_ anymore,” he sneers.

The corner of Numbers’ mouth twitches. A team. They were hardly even that. Numbers was barely twenty-three when they met, yet for all his worldliness and outstanding warrants he was still a kid in a lot of ways, something of an impressionable tagalong. Between his own criminal doings he followed Chet around like a puppy imitating a full-grown pit bull, learning how to bark and when to bite. And when Numbers outgrew all that, he begged Chet for an in with Fargo and took off the day he was cleared. If that’s what constitutes a team, Numbers thinks, they were a pretty sorry one.

“Let go of me, Chet,” Numbers says, his voice dangerously low. After a moment passes with Chet’s hand still tightly gripping his bicep, he shakes himself loose. “You’re not a part of this,” he hisses through gritted teeth. He turns on his heel and sets off towards his partner’s room.

“Like hell I’m not,” Chet calls after Numbers. And then the cabin door slams shut.

“Ah, shit,” Numbers mumbles, doubling back through the main room. Chet’s not the type to leave well enough alone, and if Numbers knows anything about the old man he knows what he’s about to do.

Rushing out onto the porch, he yells to Chet, who’s already in his car. “Chet, don’t you fucking dare go over there, alright? Stay out of it, go home!” He shifts from foot to foot, the snow stinging like pins and needles beneath his bare feet.

Disappointment pulls Chet’s head from side to side in a slow, sad shake as he starts the car and sets off down the long path leading back towards the main road.

~~~~

Morning caresses everything its open arms can reach through the clouds as Wrench and Numbers speed towards Lagler’s house. The road, some eight or so miles away from Chet’s cottage and even further away from Duluth, is desolate and barely populated. Stationed every five or six acres apart is a tiny house, only slightly bigger than the cabin. Past that, nothing but trees and the undergrowth that peeks out from beneath the snow. Wrench rubs the last traces of sleep from his eyes and guides the car around a curve, bringing Lagler’s house into view.

As they get closer to the house, Numbers’ stomach drops. The tail-end of Chet’s car is poking out from behind the bushes that line the driveway, and the front door to the house is open. He’s not surprised, or even disappointed. Just angry. “Shit…” Numbers pulls his glock out from his coat, and after parking the sedan on the street behind what could only be Lagler’s car, Wrench does the same.

Guns drawn, the men make their way up from the road to the driveway, Wrench’s eyes skirting every which way and Numbers’ ears straining to hear any noise past the wind picking up, rustling the fir trees.

Wrench throws an arm out in front of Numbers. _“Look.”_

Bullet holes—three of them—mark the passenger door of Chet’s Ford. Another shot has taken out the side mirror. Wrench nudges Numbers, jolting him out of his angry worry, and now guides his attention towards the house. Two more bullet holes in the doorframe. Splinters litter the snow and ice on the stoop like a reversal of the night sky, dark little flecks and spots scattered against white.

Numbers looks to the snowy ground and frowns. _“No footsteps.”_

Wrench looks, too, and purses the left side of his mouth over this discovery. If Chet went inside, he clearly didn’t go in through the front door. _“So where is Chet?”_

_“Hell if I know!”_

_“You shouldn’t have let him come.”_

_“I didn’t—”_ Numbers starts, but a sound from inside the house cuts his rebuttal short.

Sid Lagler appears in the doorway a moment later, gun in one hand and a large suitcase in the other. He’s disheveled, panicked, and looking so pale that he seems to be on the verge of either vomiting or fainting. From halfway down the driveway the hitmen can see he’s soaked with sweat, his thinning salt and pepper hair dripping wet. His droopy face gawks at Wrench and Numbers for a half second, and then he drops his suitcase and clumsily fires his gun. He misses both men by a mile.

Immediately, Numbers and Wrench both raise their guns, their near-simultaneous firing overlapping the echoes of Lagler’s blast. They aim low, they’ve got to take him alive; one shot barely avoids an ankle while the other hits Lagler in his right kneecap. Lagler collapses, screaming, onto the stoop, landing awkwardly on his suitcase. On impact the gun flies from his hand, skitters on the icy step, and drops into one of the low shrubs hugging the right side of the entryway. Defeat intermingles with the agony woven into Lagler’s face as he clutches his leg.

“So, Sid—is it alright if I call you ‘Sid’?” Numbers calls as he strides up the driveway ahead of Wrench. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. We’ll be real close, soon, the three of us. We’ve been dying to talk to you—”

There’s something he can barely make out in his peripheral vision. Something grey on the ground. He stops walking, stops gloating. His legs feel like all the bones and muscle have been replaced with lead but he concentrates, wills them to turn towards the out of focus mound, wishing and actually praying, for the first time in over a decade, hoping it’s not what he thinks it is…

But it is. Him. Chet. On his back in front of his car, his legs and arms at awkward angles and his gun at his side. Chet, his blue eyes vacant, open and staring up towards the parting clouds. Chet, unmoving, with a bullet wound above his left eye. Chet, oozing thick, crimson blood that pools underneath his head.

Numbers can’t move, can’t think. He vaguely registers Lagler’s pained swearing over the sound of his heartbeat drumming in his ears. But soon all the sounds around and within him swirl together, become indistinguishable and tinny and hollow in their oneness as he stares down at his mentor. His friend. At his sides, his arms hang, useless, with each limb capped off by a trembling hand. His chest burns, feeling like it could burst.

Staring into Chet’s face, he wills the old man to sit up, to get up and say something, to give one of his gruff laughs and light up a smoke, wipe the blood from his forehead. Numbers will apologize to him, curse him out, tell him off. Just one more argument.

The world and all its noises suddenly snap back into nearly overwhelming focus when Wrench puts his hand on Numbers’ neck, turning his dazed fixation away from the body. His grip on Numbers’ neck is tight though his thumb, stroking the side of his jaw, is gentle. _“We have to go,”_ he calmly signs with his free hand. _“He’s in the trunk.”_

Numbers can’t bring himself to lift his eyes to meet Wrench’s, not for all the money in the world. He tries to look to Chet again.

Wrench’s touch becomes firm, his thumb steering Numbers’ face back towards his. He leans down, trying and finally succeeding in catching Numbers’ eyes, his mouth parted and thick, heavy breaths hanging in the frigid air between them. _“We have to go,”_ he repeats, sternly this time.

Numbers barely registers what Wrench is saying. It doesn’t matter. “Diane,” he murmurs to himself, and his heart constricts. She’s going to find out everything. The police will uncover it all. Every sordid detail that they can dig up about her husband will be made public, and she’ll not only have to spend her days without the man she described as “the love of her life,” but with the knowledge that almost everything he ever told her was a lie.

 _“We can’t leave him here,”_ Numbers’ hands finally plead.

Wrench’s brows crinkle. He looks to Chet, then back to Numbers, whose grief practically radiates from his face. Realizing his hand is still on Numbers, he withdraws it and looks down at his boots, inattentively noting the specks of Lagler’s blood smeared across them. Poking his tongue between his pursed lips, he nods, then finally casts his eyes back up to Numbers. _“I’ll take him. Take L to the shop. I’ll meet you there.”_

~~~~

Early afternoon sunlight, finally unimpeded by the weekend’s persistent cloud cover, streams into the abandoned auto shop through a gap between the window and one of the boards nailed to it. The rays land on the edge of the small yet slowly expanding pool of blood, coaxing bright reds out of the crimson.

Lagler kicks his intact leg, hoarsely hollering behind the dirty rag Wrench shoved in his mouth.

“Can you shut the fuck up, Sid?” Numbers barks from across the room. He’s sitting on the floor, his back flat against the wall and his glock limply held in his hand. “I’m trying to think.” Truthfully, he’s trying _not_ to think, trying not to dwell on the fact that he’s now operating in a Chet-less world. When he left Duluth he had, at least, the luxury of knowing or at least _hoping_ that Chet was still here in town, or somewhere else in Minnesota, and doing just fine: alive and breathing, happy and as healthy as a man who’s been smoking for forty years can be. He can never indulge in that idle knowledge again.

A car pulling around the shop rouses Numbers from his miserable memories. Heavy-lidded eyes blink somberly towards the back entrance; he doesn’t feel like he has it in him to get up, let alone train his gun on the door. It takes what feels like every last ounce of his remaining energy to hoist himself upright, and the effort leaves him feeling physically exhausted.

The door opens, an expanding cone of light illuminating the room before disappearing. Wrench moves his hands. _“Everything alright?”_ He tilts his chin towards Lagler, whose right pants leg is almost entirely soaked with blood.

Numbers shrugs. _“I was waiting for you to start,”_ he lies, knowing full well that Wrench sees his split knuckles, with fresh bruises blooming around the torn skin. Deciding it’s better to inspect the floor than look at Wrench, whose demeanor is that of one who just left a funeral, he focuses on some of the pink stains he noticed just last night. But that only leads his thoughts back down the path to Chet: was he the one responsible for that particular spot? Numbers grimaces, pulls his attention upwards again. _“Where is he?”_

Wrench shakes his head, his eyes ridden with sympathy and understanding. _“Somewhere nobody will find him.”_

Numbers swallows around a lump. His head shakes up and down, working his jaw and taking deep, measured breaths of the shop’s stale air through his nose. Everything’s fine, everything will _be_ fine, he tells himself, just an hour with Lagler, tops, and—

But it’s not fine. It’s not fine at all, it’s the polar fucking opposite of “fine.” This low-life, can’t-hit-the-broad-side-of-a-barn son of a bitch got in one lucky shot that just happened to find its way through the head of one of the only people Numbers gave so much as half a damn about. A vein threatens to burst in his temple as he spins around, purple-faced with madness, and rushes at Lagler.

Four decent, thundering kicks get delivered to Lagler’s back and already-battered face before Wrench is able to pull Numbers away, his sturdy arms forming a hook around Numbers’ torso and shoulder. Numbers’ arms flail, reaching out and grasping fruitlessly at the air as he’s dragged away, the fringe on the forearm of Wrench’s jacket smacking him in the face.

 _“Keep it together!”_ Wrench chides, Numbers now shoved into one of the room’s corners like he’s a misbehaving toddler who’s been put into time out. _“We’re almost out of the woods, we’re almost done. You can grieve later. You’ll have time for that.”_ Lacking the usual expressiveness his face has when he signs, Wrench instead fixes all of his energy on holding Numbers’ balking, unrepentant stare. _“When we get back, take all the time you need. Ok? Do what you need to do. I **understand**. I get it. But for now hold it together. For me. Do this for me. Please.”_

Numbers nods, holding his hands up in half-hearted surrender. Reminding himself that Wrench has just as much stake as he does in the successful completion of this job, he sighs, looks to Lagler and licks the bloodlust from his lips, and nods again.

Wrench pats Numbers on the shoulder, the most encouraging thing he can think to do in this situation. _“Let’s finish this.”_

~~~~

“So you’re telling me,” Numbers starts, his looming form shielding Lagler from the midday sun that has settled into a perfect angle to shine through multiple cracks in the various boards around the room, “that not only do you _know_ Mr. Kranz, but he’s your _buddy_ , and he set this all up to put the frame on Carver? That’s the best you could come up with, after all the time it’s taken you to pull off this little job of yours?”

“I’ve got nothin’ to tell you but the truth,” Lagler whispers through swollen, barely-parted lips to the puddle of his own blood that sits beneath him. Chet was right: this guy loves to talk. He’s barely shut up since the gag was ripped from his mouth.

“Yeah, so you said.” Numbers squats beside Lagler, and Wrench mirrors his pose on the man’s other side. Numbers doesn’t want to look into Lagler’s face. The temptation to bring his fist to it again would be too strong. He tilts his head, inspecting the man’s bullet wound instead. “What you haven’t said is _why_. Why would he go through all this trouble with a bunch of small-time jerk-offs like you and Geoff and Antonio, just to dick over one of his own?”

Lagler chokes on a laugh. “You didn’t hear? I thought all you Fargo guys were supposed to be in the know.”

Numbers flicks the safety off his gun and waves it back and forth in front of Lagler’s face, still not acknowledging him with eye contact. It feels as if he’s straining against every muscle in his arms to keep from blindly firing a shot through Lagler’s head in the same place the guy did to Chet. “Elaborate.”

“Carver was nailin’ Kranz’s wife! Kranz found out…and asked me if I wouldn’t mind him cashin’ in on a favor I owed him.”

Numbers scrunches up his face. This would sound far more ridiculous if shit like this hadn’t gone down before. Petty, stupid infighting within the organization was legendary, from hitmen squabbling until life-long (however short those lives might be) rivalries were forged amongst themselves over who deserved to be assigned the top priority, top paying jobs, to back-stabbing and varying levels of drama over interpersonal matters like this one. The syndicate often devolves into functioning like a high school where everybody has a chip on their shoulder and an AK-47, and this just happens to be the latest chapter in what appears to be a never-ending parade of bullshit.

_“What kind of web is he spinning?”_

“Let me make sure I have this as clear as crystal,” Numbers says, holding a finger up to Wrench’s hanging question. “Mrs. Kranz got plowed by Mr. Carver, so he came to you to… To what, exactly?”

“Everybody who knew Antonio knew he was a sucker,” Lagler says monotonously. He’s starting to slump forward, losing what little momentum he has left. “A sucker that would blab about the suit coming to collect his money. ‘Mr. Carver.’” Another dry laugh emerges. “Don’t know how he dragged me into that story…” Pushing his palms against the wet floor, he tries to move into a more upright, dignified position, but his hands only slip and his face collapses into a tortured grimace as his weight’s brought back down to the ground full force. “Supposed to be two separate jobs,” Lagler continues after composing himself.

“We’re thorough guys, Sid. What can I say? Hang tight for a second.” Numbers motions to Wrench, and they both stand. Forming a sidebar behind Lagler, Numbers lays it all out.

 _“K-R-A-N-Z?”_ Wrench rolls his eyes as if it all makes sense. _“That asshole owes me fifty bucks.”_

 _“He owes you fifty dollars?”_ If Wrench is trying to distract Numbers from his misery by being annoying, it’s halfway to working. _“Why didn’t you say so on day one? We could have killed him before we left Fargo and saved ourselves all this trouble.”_

Wrench lets that slide. _“You think it all checks out?”_

 _“Don’t know,”_ Numbers shrugs. _“I know K-R-A-N-Z. He doesn’t seem like a stupid guy.”_ But if Numbers has learned anything from today, it’s that betrayal makes people do stupid things. The people behind the actions aren’t any less intelligent, necessarily, they just don’t think. Blinded by anger, double-crossed… Consequences don’t exist when those split-second decisions are made, up until when they _do_ exist, but by then it’s far too late.

Numbers nods to the door, his face going dark. _“Take Chet’s car to the cabin. I’ll be right behind you.”_

Revenge, in situations like this, is a private matter, and Wrench knows there’s no place for him in this room when Numbers exacts his. He stuffs his gun inside his coat and leaves without a single objection. It’s what he’d want Numbers to do for him.

Once the Ford rumbles past the shop and back onto the street, Numbers takes a few moments to try to silence his mind. All he wants is a fucking second of stillness within him, a fleeting instant where he doesn’t see Chet’s face behind his eyelids when he blinks or hear one of Chet’s grizzled laughs, far away like he’s in the next room with a brandy and an audience to tell his tall tales to. Even with ample concentration, he’s not able to exorcise Chet’s ghost, but he’s able to quiet it. The images are less vivid, the laugh now three rooms over instead of one.

He walks, across the room, until he’s in front of Lagler. The man on the floor must know what’s coming, but he doesn’t say anything. All his words were spent on making sure the man that orchestrated all of this would, hopefully, meet the same fate he would soon meet, and now that he’s lifted that weight from his chest his mouth remains tightly shut. That pisses Numbers off, but even Numbers is out of things to say.

He lifts his eyes from the floor and looks at Lagler, right in his face. It hardly resembles that of the trembling man on the stoop this morning. Hours ago, Lagler was the very image of cowardice and fear. Now, pure resignation. Defeat. Apathy.

Numbers' stomach churns.

He fires a single shot into Lagler’s gut. It’ll take a while—maybe hours—for him to bleed out. Even if it took days, Numbers doesn’t think it would be enough agony.

~~~~

Fargo provides Wrench and Numbers with a new car, as per request, and the hitmen follow the orange glow of the setting sun down the highway. Numbers is behind the wheel, per Wrench’s request. And that’s fine; driving for long distances creates a sort of numb haziness where nothing but the road ahead exists. For the trip home Chet’s face doesn’t appear behind his eyelids, not even once.

~~~~

Back in his apartment, with the almost-full moon watching, Numbers grudgingly allows himself to cry.


End file.
